


salt in her veins

by jasminetea



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Canon-Typical Angst, Female Character of Color, Female Friendship, Female-Centric, Gen, Mermaids, Missing Scene, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, Prompt Fill, Quote: You and me until the end (The Old Guard), Quynh | Noriko-centric, The Old Guard Comment Ficathon, implied Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko - Freeform, quynh's unimaginable suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26539282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasminetea/pseuds/jasminetea
Summary: For thisprompt: Quynh, rescued by mermaids.”You would make a good mermaid, I think.  You hunger for blood.”
Relationships: Quynh | Noriko & Original Character(s)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 38





	salt in her veins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ALC_Punk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/gifts).



> Written while listening to Tanerélle’s [Love from Ngc 7318](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjTjoQS1qyE) (ft. barnes blvd.) & [Nothing Without You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbqr3xKzI_0).

Quynh rages and screams in her underwater coffin. Pounds her fists against its iron, claws its walls until her nails peel away. Eventually, she is not just furious at the men who parted her from Andromache, but she despairs of Andromache ever coming from her.

Andromache had promised they would be together until the end.

Quynh begins to cry, and she cannot stop. She sobs through living and dying, and upon the seventh weeping death, the mermaid appears.

She doesn’t know it’s a mermaid at first, merely sees the eyes glowing in the dark. Then a fish with a lantern hung upon its brow draws close, and Quynh sees the mermaid’s face: hair plaited with kelp and pearls, eyes flashing in the light like a cat’s.

Quynh bucks and rattles the coffin, and the mermaid startles and darts away, her tail shimmering like moonlight.

* * *

Once again accompanied by the strange fish, the mermaid returns. She sings sweetly to Quynh, and Quynh cries at its beauty.

She asks Quynh questions, but after Quynh takes nine deaths to reply to the first question, the mermaid understands Quynh is not made for the deep and the dark. So she beckons Quynh with webbed hands to press her face tightly to the maiden’s mouth, and the mermaid leans in.

Quynh thinks it’s for a kiss until she sees the mermaid’s teeth, just as sharp as the fish’s.

The mermaid does not eat her though. Merely pushes a bubble of air from her mouth into Quynh’s, and ah, to breathe! To stop, for a moment, dying.

The mermaid gives her too much air though, and Quynh passes out, and then dies again.

* * *

The second kiss, the mermaid gives her just the right amount of air. It sits like a candy in Quynh’s mouth, and she must carefully talk around it.

The mermaid’s name is something Quynh’s human mouth cannot shape, but the mermaid says Quynh’s name easily, perfectly.

“I did not think anyone this far away would know how to say it,” Quynh replies. As she traveled further from home, she resigned herself to hearing her name poorly said. Even Andromache had taken months to hear the many tones of her native language. So it is a comfort to hear her name upon the mermaid’s lips, like hearing her mother once more.

 _L_ _anguage is of the flesh_ , the mermaid replies, _and I have tasted your tears. Besides_ , she laughs, a thing that sends the fish spinning in happy circles, _I have eaten the men of your homeland too._ _You are not the only one who has traveled far._

* * *

They speak until Quynh is herself again, or as much of herself as she can be. The pain of drowning, the maddeningly slow sticky spread of time, the gaps in her memory from dying – none of this is conducive for lucidity.

So the mermaid nurses Quynh in her own way, asking about the places Quynh has seen. The mermaid is particularly curious about the places and peoples far from the reach of the ocean, like mountain tops and desert dunes. In return, the mermaid tells Quynh what new and strange things human toss into the ocean. They still dump bodies, alive and dead – Quynh’s blood boils at this; of course, they would still kill women like her even in the future – but there is poison now too, and refuse that tangles and kills the people of the sea.

Quynh wants to ask the mermaid how long she’s been in her coffin, but she isn’t ready to know how long it’s been since Andromache abandoned her. Instead, she asks, “Why have you not freed me from this prison yet?”

_You have not asked._

“Free me!” she demands.

 _A_ _nd what will you do? Will you return to the land? It is much harder now to be a person from nowhere with nothing._ _Or_ _would you_ _remain and_ _join me and my s_ _isters_ _? We don’t just lure men you know. You would make a good mermaid, I think._ _Y_ _ou hunger for blood._

Quynh has no answer.

* * *

Now that Quynh can breathe, she can hunger and sleep again. The mermaid feeds her raw fish like a well-loved, if wild, pet. And when she sleeps, she dreams again. There are new immortals now, and she glimpses Andromache with these other men who call her Andy. Guns advanced into elegant weapons, but Andromache still carries her labrys, traveling with these men to do good. And when the work is done, they drink and feast, and tease each other over stories Quynh does not know.

They’re a happy family, and oh how jealousy grips Quynh. The others must dream of Quynh as she does them, and still, Andromache had not come for her. She and her men have tales and laughter and each other, and Quynh has nothing but death in her mouth and salt in her veins.

* * *

“I am ready,” Quynh declares. “Release me.”

She is ready to explain to the mermaid her choice, but the mermaid smiles and plucks the locks like overripe fruit, the rusted things crumbling in her hands. Quynh pushes against the iron maiden one last time and then leaves it.

The mermaid’s webbed hand caresses her face. _You could stay here_ , she offers again.

Quynh merely shakes her head, mind full of Andromache and the promise she and Quynh had made. _You and me, u_ _ntil the end_ , they’d whispered, waiting to wake from death to each other’s faces.

The mermaid leads her through the darkest part of the ocean. For a long time, they swim past creatures strange and wondrous – squid large as men, pods of singing whales, octopuses curled around sunken ships. But eventually the water gives way to filtered sunlight and Quynh’s eyes readjust. The world is awash in color: teal water, rainbow fish, green kelp. The mermaid’s skin is flush now, and the scales of her tail shimmer like precious stones.

At last, they near the shore, and the mermaid says she will go no further. And then, _Come back if your land wife does not know how to honor your vows._ _W_ _e know what that is like._ _She_ _will_ _die eventually, and we can pick our teeth with her bones._ The mermaid laughs, the sound drawing in fishes. _Ah, one last thing_ , she continues. From her braid, she plucks a pearl, and places it in Quynh’s palm. _S_ _o you remember t_ _he ocean_ _gives as well as takes_.

Quynh merely nods and thanks the mermaid for all she has done for her.

 _You have no need to thank me._ _Y_ _ou and your warrior woman will make such a beautiful song –_ _I_ _will_ _sing_ _many_ _to their deaths_ _with it_ , she sighs dreamily.

Quynh wishes her good hunting, and then slips the pearl into her mouth. As she swims to the surface, she thinks of the world she will return to. The mermaid had told her of buildings touching the sky, ships sailing beneath the sea, and how old empires had fallen. But somethings remain the same, like the sweetness of longan, salmon returning upstream, or the pattern of the stars across the sky. She and Andromache should have been one of these, so Quynh’s task will be as straight and true as her arrows:

She will write her and Andromache’s promise in blood, no matter many deaths it takes, until Andromache remembers that promises are for keeping.

**Author's Note:**

> The closing line was inspired by this quote from Seth Dickinson’s The Monster Baru Cormorant, “I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood.” 
> 
> Please comment. :)


End file.
